Appendix C: Chronology of the Life and Times of John Hyde

“So teach us to number our days, That we may get us a heart of wisdom.”

— Psalm 90:12, ASV

The dates below are meant as orientation. Where a date comes from an independent record, such as the seminary catalogue, the missionary magazines of Hyde’s church, a mission report, or a contemporary obituary, it is given plainly. Where it rests on the devotional memoirs of 1923, it is marked as such. Events in the wider history of the Punjab and of revival are included for context.

1834 - The Lodiana Mission

American Presbyterian missionaries begin work at Ludhiana in the Punjab. The mission, later called the Punjab Mission of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., becomes Hyde’s mission.

1855-1857 - The Sialkot Mission

The United Presbyterian Church of North America opens a mission centred on Sialkot. It will host the Sialkot Convention from 1904.

1863 - Edmund Hyde Born

John’s elder brother, Edmund Harris Hyde, is born.

1865 - Birth

John Nelson Hyde is born on 9 November 1865 at Carrollton, Greene County, Illinois, to the Rev. Smith Harris Hyde, a Presbyterian minister, and his wife. He is one of six children who grow to adulthood. His father later serves seventeen years as pastor of the Presbyterian church at Carthage, Illinois.

1873 - Ditt and the Beginning of the Mass Movement

Ditt, a lame hide-dealer of the Chuhra community near Sialkot, is baptized and returns to his village. In August he brings his wife, daughter, and two neighbours for baptism. From this beginning, the people movement among the Punjab’s lowest castes gradually spreads.

1881 - Census

The Punjab census counts 3,912 Indian Christians.

1886 - Mount Hermon

At a student conference called by D. L. Moody, one hundred students volunteer for foreign missions. The Student Volunteer Movement follows.

1887 - College

Hyde graduates from Carthage College, Illinois. He then teaches for a time.

1888 - Edmund Graduates

Edmund Hyde graduates from Lake Forest University. He later spends a year at McCormick Seminary. McGaw says he was a Student Volunteer.

1889 - Seminary

Hyde enters McCormick Theological Seminary, Chicago.

1891 - Edmund’s Death

Edmund dies in August 1891 after contracting fever during summer mission work in Montana (the place and illness per McGaw). John is between his second and final years of seminary.

1891-1892 - The Decision

During his final year, after a night on his knees, Hyde tells a classmate, “It is settled” (McGaw).

1892 - Ordination and Sailing

Hyde graduates from McCormick. He is ordained by the Presbytery of Schuyler on 26 April 1892 and appointed to the Punjab (Lodiana) Mission. He sails from New York on 15 October 1892. On the voyage he receives the letter urging him to seek the filling of the Spirit (McGaw; Carré). Soon after arriving in India he faces the question at the open-air meeting (Carré).

1892-1901 - Early Years

Language study and village work in the Ferozepore and Ludhiana districts. Griswold later calls these years “steady, patient, but not especially fruitful.” Hyde neglects language study for Bible study and is reprimanded (McGaw). His colleagues begin to notice, and some to criticise, his long hours of prayer.

1896 - “The Life on Wings”

Hyde speaks on “The Life on Wings” at a Student Volunteer conference in Lahore, with John R. Mott present. The address is printed in Madras the same year.

1901 - Census; First Furlough

The Punjab census counts 38,513 Indian Christians. Hyde arrives in New York on 15 May 1901 “from Ferozepore.”

1902 - Return to India

Hyde speaks at the Presbyterian women’s board meeting in Omaha in the spring. He sails from New York on 17 September 1902.

1904 - The Prayer Union and the First Convention

The Punjab Prayer Union is begun, “about April” (Carré), with Hyde “one of the moving spirits.” The first Sialkot Convention “for the deepening of the spiritual life” is held. Hyde leads Bible studies, testifies to his own struggles at a men’s meeting (McGaw), and says at its close, “Oh, I must not lose this blessing” (Griswold). The Welsh revival begins in the autumn.

1905 - The Second Convention

Revival at Pandita Ramabai’s Mukti mission and in the Khasi Hills. The Prayer Union’s spring meeting feels “the burden of a world plunged in sin.” The Sialkot Convention of 25 August to 3 September, with nearly 300 attending, sees deep conviction and confession. The appointed speaker on the Holy Spirit, identified by the memoirs as Hyde, has “no message,” and the chairman declares, “The Holy Ghost is leader of this meeting” (official mission report).

1906 - The Convention Opened to All

The convention is opened to Christians generally. Hyde, Paterson, and Turner are said to have prayed for weeks beforehand (McGaw). Pengwern Jones first meets Hyde, probably this year, at the Punjab Mission’s meeting in Ludhiana.

1907 - Moga; Murree

By 1907 the Ludhiana district has been reorganised. Hyde becomes superintendent of the Moga circle of 275 villages. The mission report quotes his method: “Begin the day in prayer and praise with your helpers.” In the summer he spends a week of prayer at Murree with Paterson and Jones (Carré). A letter he writes on 9 May about political unrest is quoted in Woman’s Work.

1908 - One Soul a Day

After a summer of travail in the hills with friends (very probably the Patersons), Hyde asks God for one soul a day. The memoirs report more than four hundred won that year (McGaw; no independent record found).

1909 - Two a Day

The memoirs report a request for two souls a day, and eight hundred “gathered in” between the 1909 and 1910 conventions (McGaw; no independent record found).

1910 - Four a Day; The Last Convention; Calcutta

The memoirs report four souls a day (McGaw). The Moga district records 685 baptisms in 1910 (Woman’s Work, 1911). Hyde’s last Sialkot Convention. Meetings in Calcutta and elsewhere. A Calcutta doctor reports his heart displaced to the right side (McGaw). The Ferozepore training school for village preachers and teachers, founded by Hyde, is in operation (Griswold).

1911 - Leaving India; Britain

Hyde leaves India in March 1911. He lands at Liverpool on Good Friday, 14 April, and stays with Pengwern Jones at Llangollen (Carré). He prays for the Chapman-Alexander mission at Shrewsbury, 20-28 April. He is at Evan Hopkins’s pre-Keswick prayer meeting, but illness keeps him from Keswick in July. The Punjab census counts 163,994 Indian Christians. That summer the training school moves from Ferozepore to Moga.

1911 - Clifton Springs

Hyde arrives in New York on 8 August 1911 and goes to Clifton Springs, New York, for treatment. A tumour is found and operated on. He writes a postcard to his sister on 27 October. On 19 December he moves to his sister’s home in Northampton, Massachusetts.

1912 - Death

John Nelson Hyde dies on 17 February 1912 at the home of his sister, Mrs. E. H. Mensel, in Northampton, Massachusetts, aged forty-six. His last words are spoken in Punjabi (Griswold), remembered as “Bol, Yisu Masih, ki jai!” (W. B. Anderson). He is buried on 20 February 1912 in Moss Ridge Cemetery, Carthage, Illinois, beside his parents and his brother Edmund. Griswold’s obituary, “The Man Who Never Sleeps,” appears in The Assembly Herald in April.

1921-1923 - The Memoirs

Pengwern Jones publishes his reminiscences month by month in The Remembrancer, with a further series by McCheyne Paterson. In 1923 they are gathered by E. G. Carré as A Present-Day Challenge to Prayer (Madras). In the same year Francis McGaw publishes Praying Hyde (Philadelphia).